Comment on Mastodon Exit Interview
poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 week agoSee long argument above. It exists and is viable for millions of people. Once people decide they want something other than corporate social media, the Fediverse is there. There is no point in trying to make the Fediverse a copy of the corporate social media to appeal to users that see no reason to switch. The Fediverse is relevant regardless of the size, because it proves an real alternstive is posdible and viable.
rglullis@communick.news 1 week ago
Again, this is just a lazy cop-out and a perfect display of the hubris here that is so off-putting.
You make it sound that the people using Instagram or TikTok are there because they like the Surveillance Capitalism, or getting bombard by ads, or they are all sucking up to Zuckerberg. Have you ever considered that maybe people are still there because they actually like some of the features they use in the products and they can’t find it here?
poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
Have you actually talked to some people using TikTok? Yes, they do like the personalized algorithmic feed, and that is inseperable from the surveillance part, and they certainly don’t want to pay for it either.
The ones with hubris are people like you that think they can turn the Fediverse into the next big thing. Of course people already on the fediverse are going try raining on your parade 🤷
rglullis@communick.news 1 week ago
There is absolutely nothing stopping the personalization algorithms to run on-device or delegated to a separate service from the video feed.
It doesn’t have to be a “donation/public funding” vs “ads/surveillance capitalism” dichotomy. I bet we can find alternative models of governance and funding, provided we get to a place Fediverse is relevant enough to attract the attention of some small business, media channels, institutions, etc.
poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
But that is not how the TikTok recommendation algorithm works and doing it locally only would be a very poor substitute most likely, as it seem to also recommend what other people with a similar behavior pattern have liked. And the same algorithm is used to identify suitable targets for advertisers, so the two are basically inseparable.
That’s like saying the community garden needs to be relevant enough to attract a seed shop and a fast-food stand etc. And a few weeks later there is no more community garden but rather a strip mall owned by the local oligopolists renting out booths to entrepreneurs. That is just not helpful at all, because it destroys the very foundation of what the Fediverse tries to achieve.